Every January Sunset hosts a big workshop that people from all over attend. Part of this workshop is a time they call “Here Am I, Send Me” that allows missionaries who are preparing to go to the field to make an appeal before everyone to ask for support. Up until a few years ago, this was done live before the audience. Now, it is recorded on video and shown before the different speakers. And that made yesterday a crazy day.
Katie and I finally made it into the studio yesterday to read our plea from a teleprompter. It went fine, but we looked pretty ridiculous and weren’t happy with how it came out. I then took the video home so that I could add pictures from Ukraine and make it a bit more visually appealing. Seemed easy enough, but for some reason my computer decided to no longer allow me to upload video. After battling for over an hour, I took a short nap to regroup, and then battled some more. Fail.
So as this project that should have taken less than an hour had eaten into my entire afternoon and was about to devour my entire evening, I called a friend to see if I could edit it on his computer. The problem: he uses different software than I do. It took quite a while to get used to the new editing environment, but we got the whole thing done in less than two hours. Time: 8:20pm. I’ll never get that afternoon back.
It is this side of “modern mission work” that really gets to me; the things we have to do that don’t have anything to do with what we should be doing. And I’m not even expecting this video to do much for our support raising, but I would love to be proven wrong.
Go ahead. Prove me wrong. I dare you.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Well…
I Had fun.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Keep it up! I remember all the frustrating times we did stuff like that! Don’t let it get you down. Choose to see it in a positive light. Don’t let Satan discourage you when things don’t go as planned. God is working, as I know you know. He has got something figured out for you. We’re just waiting to see the ‘what’ and ‘when’ of that plan! Praying for and with you,
Lucy
January 20th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
I am so sorry it has to be like this for you guys. Ugh. I wish … I wish. It is so frustrating to love missions and missionaries and then see where church money goes and watch church politics play out around us. James and I get so mad sometimes after another meeting with the elders about our mission support. I STILL think we are blessed with the congregation we are a part of, but I get so frustrated with the American church perception of money. I am sorry you guys have to “audition” for money so that you can do God’s work. We love you. We pray for you. We are proud of you.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:57 am
This may help prove you wrong… I’m a minister from broken arrow, ok and would love to connect with you this weekend. Not sure ifanything will come of it… But our church has a history of mission work in Ukraine
text me while I’m here in Lubbock.
918.810.4977
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:12 am
We love you Brandon! I really got on so I could share that I got a good chuckle out of your post title. “Here am I, Send me Madness” is probably a fairly accurate representation of mission work.
Also. I like the cute little smiley face in the bottom of your webpage. It subliminally makes people happy, I’m sure.